Alabama Takes Thriller From Aggies, 29-21
38,000 Watch Tide Win On Only One First Down
1/2/1942
Texas A. & M. held Alabama to one first down Thursday, but the Crimson Tide rolled to four touchdowns, a field goal and a couple of extra points to win the sixth annual Cotton Bowl game, 29 to 21.
Thirty-eight thousand fans shivered in a bitterly cold north wind that swept downfield and numbed pass receivers' hands. Despite this unusual Cotton Bowl weather, very few fans left the stadium before game's end, attesting to the interesting play the athletes were putting out.
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It was A. & M. that scored first, Leo Daniels setting up the touchdown on his first play in the game by running back a punt thirty-four yards to the Alabama 18-yard line. Three plays later (second play in the second period), Daniels, one of the Southwest Conference's hottest sophomores, pitched a pass to Herman Cowley, a lanky substitute end, on the 6-yard line and that young man galloped across the double stripe. Jake Webster, the place-kicking Aggie backfielder, toed the ball across the bar to send the Cadets into a seven-point advantage.
Boom! Alabama promptly exploded. Daniels fumbled and Don Whitmire, sophomore Crimson Tide tackle, covered the ball on the Aggie 25. Jimmy Nelson hit Field Judge Gabe Hill on the head with his first pass, but connected with Holt Rast, the brilliant wing, on his second to put the ball on the 8. Twice more Nelson hurled the ball unsuccessfully, then crossed up the Aggie defense on a beautifully executed reverse play. Nelson started to the right at fast clip, handed the ball to Halfback Russ Craft, who steamed to the left on a scoring sweep. George Hecht, 221-pound junior guard, kicked the extra point that knotted the count.
That's the way the score stood until early in the third period when Nelson took Derence Moser's kick on the Alabama 28-yard line and galloped behind bristling interference seventy-two yards for a touchdown. Weldon Maples, Aggie guard, blocked Hecht's try for the extra point.
Just before the third period expired, Nelson again crossed the last marker. Daniels fumbled Nelson's kick and Sam Sharp, junior Alabama end, fell on the ball on the Aggie 21. On the first play, Nelson started to the right, cut back through the Aggie left tackle and waded behind excellent interference for a touchdown. And again Hecht kicked goal.
Early in the fourth, after Alabama's attack had been bogged down on the Cadets' 14-yard line, Hecht came running off the bench to kick a field goal that put the Aggies behind, 7 to 23.
A Nelson kick that rolled dead on the Aggie 4-yard line enabled the Tide to swell the score even more. Moser elected to pass from behind his goal line. Backfielder Marshall Spivey dropped his first shot. Cowley caught the next one on the 10. His third was to Webster, who reached for the ball, barely got to it, tipped it into the hands of Rast, who sped a dozen yards and across the goal. Hecht's kick for the extra point was blocked.
With the aid of a fifteen-yard penalty assessed Alabama for rough play, the Cadets moved fifty-four for their next counter. Daniels passed from his 46 to Cowley on the Alabama 39. Alabama was penalized to the 23, from where Daniels pitched to End Jim Sterling on the 9. Daniels shot a forward to Spivey on 1, and from there Webster plunged across for his first touchdown this campaign. Webster kicked the extra point.
Late in the game, Moser shot a thirty-five-yard pass toward Sterling. Nelson, standing on the goal line, intercepted, but failed to hold the ball, which popped into the air and right into Sterling's hands for six points. Webster kicked the extra point that would up the scoring in another Cotton Bowl.
For Alabama it was the fourth victory in six bowl starts. The Southeastern Conference eleven came here with a record of three wins, a loss and a tie in the Rose Bowl. For the Aggies, it was the first bowl loss in three tries. They defeated Fordham here last Jan. 1 and a year earlier best Tulane in the Sugar Bowl.
Alabama had put all its defensive eggs in one little basket for this game, and Coach Frank Thomas made mo mistake in getting his team ready to slap down passes. For the Aggies, the nation's leading college passing aggregation, threw forty-two times and Alabama intercepted seven tosses and allowed only thirteen completions. The Aggies rushed the ball more than usual, rolling up 115 yards in that manner while they gathered only fifty-nine via the air lanes. Alabama tossed only seven passes, completed only one. Sixteen times Alabama was forced to kick, while the Cadets punted only seven times, but each team averaged the same distance in round figures – thirty-six yards.
Those statistics show rather plainly what happened to the Aggies. All season they had relied on their aerial barrage. Nine times out of ten during the regular season it paid off. It wasn't enough to down the University of Texas Longhorns – and it wasn't enough to best bowl-wise Alabama. Whatever chance the Cadets might have to make their attack click, they ruined by fumbles. There were six of them in all, and five times they lost the ball on them.
So Coach Homer Norton can charge off the loss – only the third for the Aggies in their last thirty-two games, stretching over a three-year period – to Alabama's alert pass defense and fumbleitis.
The victory was a typical Alabama bowl triumph. The Tide simply wasted few scoring opportunities. They seized practically every break and made them pay off. And you can't beat that kind of football. At least, the Aggies couldn't.
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